New Move

Hi, I am a single mom moving to St Thomas to chase a crazy dream. I am 26 and my little girl is 6. We are coming with our dog Lola:)
We have one way tickets for July 1st and no idea where we will live. I would love a roommate as I am trying to start a company and funds will be tight. Maybe me???or any other advise?

Ashley

Ashley, unless you're a homeschool mom, please be sure to plan for the +/- $1200 per month for private school into your tight budget. Our kids need to come first even with "crazy dreams", right? Good luck!

Lisa

Ashley
Lisa is right about school fee's there , however you can send your child to public school. My son went to private school on STJ I was able to obtain a scholarship so dont give up. You can also think about public schools alot of stateside kids do go public . It must be investigated by you before hand I can say from exp. What type of work are you planning and what type of business ? If you have parents who will keep you kid for a month or so I highly do recommend that to give you time to get things together. Your brave ! My daughter is 23 and she just left to Baltimore alone and got a new job and apt in a big, bad city so I was proud of her . But I did keep her daughter who is 8 . for one month. Which Island? There has to be a transition and or help from friends there and also friends dont always pull try like we think or need . Be prepared to take care of your self . Dont give up on your dreams. Yolanda

I know nothing about your ethnic background, your daughter, or her ability to be "color blind", but both of my kids were absolutely mortified at the thought of the public schools here, after having just driven past them. They've always attended public schools up to this point, but that was absolutely NOT an option for us here. So much so that, had my husband's company not paid the tuitions, the kids and I would have stayed stateside just to avoid them. Just something for you to keep in mind, and just this (very picky) mom's opinion.

Lisa

I'm not sure what popflops means by her children being "mortified" at the thought of attending public school, but please pay attention to what she is saying.

The fact of the matter is, if you do not have the funds available to send your kids to private schools, and you are not presently homeschooling, you should reconsider moving to the Virgin Islands.

This has less to do with the quality of the schools and more to do with ethnicity and culture. Your child is already leaving everything he/she knows and moving far away from family and friends. To enroll that child in a school where he will probably be one of only a handful of Anglo children, where island accents will make it difficult for him to understand both teachers and other children, and where the culture is totally foreign is not, in my opinion, a recipe for success.

Nobody likes to hear this. Everyone thinks their family is the exception, and some certainly are. But you cannot assume your children will be able to successfully attend public schools. Plan on private schools for at least a year and take that time to investigate your options.

Linda J -- They were very frightened when at each school we drove past (which is three on the way to their school), there wasn't another Anglo face in the entire bunch. I agree absolutely with everything in your post, and couldn't imagine forcing either of my kids into a situation every day that would be so stressful for them!

Lisa

Children won't fear diversity if their parents don't teach them to.

Yes they will. They learn from past experiences.

rks - Our children have always lived in small, rural communities sorely lacking in ethnic diversity. Their fear is legitimate, as it is fear of the unknown (as SkysTheLimit suggests). At least in our case, we as parents have not "taught" them racial ignorance, and I resent the implication.

Lisa

...past experiences with other young children whose parents taught them to fear diversity.

Look folks, the population of the territory is 11% white...STX is a fair amount less than that. If that's a problem for you in any way you should reconsider living here. If you're going to roll the windows up and speed past large groups of people who don't look like you, then you're part of the problem.

Lisa, your comment is racist, and it reflects a racist mindset. Resent that I called you on it all you want.

rks
Be real . You take a local kid and plant him in some small farm town in Iowa. He is out of his element. He would be scared to. That does not make them a raciest.

Of course he or she would. Feeling the fear of being "out of one's element" is one of life's callenges. All the rationales we hear for avoiding that challenge smack of bigotry in all its clever disguises.

For example, this discussion quickly focused on schools in the vi, yet NO ONE has mentioned the quality of education as a relevant factor in deciding where to put your kid. The entire discussion so far has revolved around fear of diversity on the part of parents.

Wow.....I guess kids have really changed....they don't tease each other ...don't bully each other ...don't make fun of someone...don't make them sit by themselves at lunch anymore ...won't play with them in the school yard...won't have them over their house to play.....won't take their school supplies cause they don't have the same nice one ...I don't think their parent or parents "taught" them all of those behaviours .....kids are no different than adults in many ways ...but the kids DON'T get to choose the enviorement WE as parents put them in...

I guess that's sarcasm, but it's impossible to tell what your point is. Are you suggesting that Crucian kids are more or less prone to schoolyard behavior than our own precious cherubs? If so, that doesn't make much sense. To the extent that it happens at all, that sort of thing happens everywhere.

Consider the lesson kids learn when their parents pick up and move them to an island with a particular demographic, but then make choices for them which isolate them from that demographic. Kids have radar for the subtleties those sorts of decisions imply. Sorry, but I couldn't live with myself if I did that to my kids.

And yes, having spent time in public and private classrooms in the last several years, I believe kids have really changed. Socialization is a beautiful thing, now, here, compared to what it was in my youth. The only issue that seems to consistently divide the kids I've been around is religion, and, predictably, it's the Christians who tend to be intolerant.

Wholesale condemnation of our public schools because you can't see an Anglo face is stunningly stupid. I know a lot of kids who are products of our public schools. For the most part, they are very well mannered and hard working. I now see why a lot of locals are at times indignant at some of the stateside transplants. I can't believe we still have moronic xenophobes living amongst us.

My post stands. Childre are not social experiments. To take children from a familiar situation to one that is totally foreign to them is cruel.

rks....no point trying to be made other than our kids have to sort out the enviorments(school,island life ,divorce etcc...)we put them in,so I think OUR own thinking plays into that decision on what makes US the parent more comfortable. I do think it's fair to say that putting a white suburban kid into a black carribean school plays both ways...You make the point islanders have an intolerant attitude towards mainlanders sometimes...racism ?...I don't think so it's just an attitude.they have based on past experiences ...as for the Crucian kids ...I think like anywhere else mostly good...My personal experience at the college level at the campus on STX I must say they are respectful and well educated and I love the "Good morning" everyone chimes when entering a classroom;)

Linda, there's no "experiment" to putting a child in a public school. It's been done plenty of times before you. By far the greater cruelty is to put your children in a bubble of your own paranoia.

poorthang, your point is valid. Indeed it does play both ways...disproportionately so, I'm afraid. I would have absolutely no hesitation putting my child into a public school classroom here (and my child would go, happily), but an islander would/should be genuinely afraid to be immersed in a stateside classroom, as the story of Jaheem Herrera clearly and so sadly illustrates.

I no longer have minor children, so I don't really have a dog in this fight. My children went to integrated public schools, as do my grandchildren. I felt this was the best choice for my children. But every parent has to make the same determination based on what is best for his/her own children. In the case of stateside children moving to the USVI, whether the child is black or white, my advice about public school is always the same -- extreme caution and through research. Anything else is not fair to those asking advice.

Wow! Can't we just get along? 😀 I have kids too, and being relatively new on-island we're checking out schools and considering transitioning from home school into schools for the 'social aspect' among other things. My kids know that my skin is darker than my wife's, and they know that that doesn't mean anything. Yes, people make it mean something, yet there are idiots in any race and in any religion it seems as well. The issue for my kids is not one of color, but of COOL. In case I'm the only one who noticed (haha), it's been VERY hot here recently, and per some long-time locals, possibly even a bit hotter than usual. Maybe global warming isn't a crock. Anyway, I find it counterproductive while homeschooling to have to change shirts several times or just be plain hot and attempting to impart wisdom and growth to an equally hot kid- so as we check out schools (went to AZ for their open house this week) and will check out others, yes they are quite expensive, but isn't the whole purpose of us sending them to school to have them get well-educated, and not become drones of the state, and turn out better than us? We went to the carnival/fundraiser at Country Day a couple of weeks back, and I witnessed first hand some of the same clique-ish behavior among students that seems to exist all over, not just here. Bottom line is, if our schools suck, then it's up to us as parents and concerned non-parents to do something about it- get in there and volunteer is one way, and be accountable. The time is over for us to abdicate responsibility to schools to fill our kids heads with the stuff they should be- if we don't get involved, then we forfeit the right to complain about it when this generation grow up and takes over the world. Enough soapboxing.....off to the beach -> 🙂

King - You just mentioned 2 private schools. Are you also checking out public schools?

Cultural ignorance takes many forms. Until I was 8 years old, I didn't know there were black people who spoke only Spanish; I'd never met any. Until I was 10 years old, I didn't know women could mow lawns (seriously; I'd never seen it, and I questioned the gender of the first woman I saw using a lawnmower!). When you're an adult, this is a problem, but when you're a kid, it's usually not your fault -- just a lack of experience.

Let me recount my experience as a kid in new-school situations.

My family moved from the states to Puerto Rico, and suddenly all my lifelong friends were gone. The kids in my new (middle-class) neighborhood and I got on fine, although we sometimes had a hard time understanding each other (I learned Spanish pretty quickly, but to go from zero to fluency over a few months of summer is a lot to ask, even for a child's malleable brain). Then the big decisions were made (not by me) about where I was to go to school. I wound up attending a private school (without my new friends, whom I missed) because my mother landed a teaching job there, so tuition was free. My new classmates were all kinds of colors, shapes, and sizes. There weren't a lot of other kids there who were white like me, but the environment was a healthy one -- I was never taunted, bullied, or anything of the kind. And I still got to see my neighborhood friends around, although we never really became close again.

Fast forward a few years and suddenly I am in public school in a rural but populous community on the East Coast. All the kids are white, so I look like I should fit right in.... wrong! The issue was not one of race but of social class -- these kids had grown up in a very conservative, lower-class community, and along with that came a very different set of values than I had ever known. Bullying, violence, and teasing were rampant, and the two years I spent in that school were a living hell for me. I really have never gotten over the experiences I had there -- the cruelty I both witnessed and received was an incredible shock to my system.

I'm not going to pick apart anyone's words in this current conversation -- just remind folks that race is only part of the package when it comes to whether a child will fit in somewhere or not. And like it or not, fitting in is an important part of whether your child will be able to have a good learning experience anywhere.

are there gangs and guns and rape and fights and police escorts on the public school premises? do these 'black' crimes happen in these public schools? i havent heard anything violent taking place here. im from texas & can smell bigotry & closet-hate a mile away! this is crap! we will be there by june. and furthermore, my 11 year old white daughter will be attending a public school. that is OUR non-racial decision. the only decision we as parents need to make about school is her safety & her level of education. we live in AZ, its rated as #49 in the blessed USA. at this point, anything is an improvement.
i let her read this post & she, an 11 year old, is appalled at this outlook & behavior. everything else is acclimating. get used to it. we all bleed RED...

Jett, please post again after you are here and your daughter is enrolled in school. What is needed in this conversation is actual experience.